A Cultural History of the Fever 发烧文化史
作者：阿德里安娜拉弗朗斯
来源：《英语世界》2020年第06期
For most of human history， an unusually high body temperature was a sign of the supernatural. Fevers were sinister1 but common， unnatural but real.
Ancient Romans had at least three temples dedicated to worshipping a god of fever. A
ccording to a 1918 issue of The Classical Weekly， Romans would leave amulets2 in the structures of febris3， hoping to placate the deities who made them sick.
In the Middle Ages， fever treatments included incantations4， elixirs5， charms6， and exorcisms7. Avicenna， the influential Persian scholar， described the condition as “extraneous heat， kindled in the heart， from which it is diffud to the whole body through the arteries and veins.” In the centuries that followed， fevers retained an air of mysticism.
Fevers were mysterious largely becau people didn’t understand they were a symptom rather than a dia in their own right—but also becau of their emingly paradoxical8 qualities. A person who is febrile feels hot to the touch， but experiences bouts9 of shivering cold. Someone with a very high temperature can get well without intervention， whereas the condition of a person with milder fever can em to suddenly deteriorate.
“Going back to Hippocrates， people—doctors and their patients—had the concepti
on that fever was the dia itlf rather than， say， caud by salmonella， or influenza， or some microbial organism，” said Howard Markel， the director of the Center for the History of Medicine and a professor of pediatrics10 and communicable dias at the University of Michigan. “Nobody knew about microbes， so fever was considered a dia.”
Generations of doctors tried to treat fevers themlves， not their underlying caus， often with gruesome outcomes. “Particularly with febrile dias， one of the ideas was that you had unbalanced humors11，” said David Morens， a nior scientific advisor at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Dias. “The idea was that bad humors were causing the dia肉末炒粉条
， or at least the fever， and you had to get rid of the poison.” In the 1700s， patients with febrile dias were bled， sometimes to death， in an attempt to get rid of toxicity.
Even into the 20th century， as people began to understand that fever was the symptom and not the dia， fever was explicitly connected to how illness were described： yellow fever， typhoid12 fever， scarlet fever.
Today， doctors don’t treat fevers as much as they attempt to treat a fever’s underlying cau， but philosophies on fevers are evolving. As recently as the 1970s， doctors still wondered if inciting fever might help kill off an actual infection. There’s little scientific evidence that a fever can stop a virus， but that idea has persisted， highlighting the sometimes bizarre manifestations of fever’s cultural standing.
What， then， is the evolutionary purpo of a fever？
It may simply be a way for humans to know that they’re sick—which is uful not just for the person suffering， but for the community around that person. Consider， for example， what happened during the catastrophic measles epidemic in Fiji in 1875. “The people had never en an epidemic fever—not ever，” Morens said. “This is a group of people who lived for over 1，000 years on a group of islands. There had never been an epidemic febrile dia there.” And yet they knew how to protect themlves right away.
“First of all， they were terrified—all of the sudden their bodies were turning hot and
cold，” Morens said. “They didn’t know what it was or why. They thought they’d been bewitched13 But they immediately u补汤食谱大全
nderstood the concept of contagion and they started isolating themlves. They’d never en a fever before but they immediately recognized it was contagious. Groups of people ran to the highlands and hid until the epidemic went away. In some cas， where people were sick， they locked them up in a village and burned them down and killed them.”
